Industry Updates

The case of HvS (Surrogacy Agreement) may have passed you by as not being relevant as it involves a surrogacy agreement however, the decision of the judge in this case, has far reaching effects.

The background is that the biological father and his same sex partner argued the biological mother of the child entered into a surrogacy agreement with them with father and his partner co-parenting and mother having a role in the child’s life.

Mother argued she and father agreed to have a baby with her as main carer and there was no surrogacy agreement.

The court decided it did not need to worry about the nature of the agreement, its primary concern was the child’s welfare.

The court found that mother deliberately misled father and his partner. Despite initially encouraging father to be involved she subsequently tried to exclude him and disrupt his time with the child.

The court ordered the child to live with father and his partner, transferring residence from mother.

The reason for this decision was the child was at risk of harm if living with mother. They found he could not prioritise the child’s needs above her own.

Whilst there are the initial warnings about the danger of private surrogacy agreements the main point to come from this case is the need for all parties to behave constructively and put the child’s interests first.